D.W. Griffith: The Life and Achievements of the Genius Filmmaker - Research Paper Example

 D.W. Griffith: The Life and Achievements of the Genius Filmmaker Early Life: Climbing Out from Poverty On January 22, 1875, Jacob Wark Griffith and Mary Perkins Oglesby became the parents of David Wark Griffith (Drew, 2002). David was born in Crestwood, Kentucky to a an “impoverished family” (Henderson, 2010, p.1). David's father, also called “Roaring Jake,” was a Confederate Civil War veteran, who influenced his son with his love for the romantic and dramatic, as well as Jeffersonian goals and values (Drew, 2002). His father's animating stories about Mexican and the Civil Wars fired his son's imagination (Henderson, 2010, p.1), where David remembered that his stories “burned right into [his]memory” (Lang, 1994, p.25). David's southern upbringing, which meant defeat during the Civil War, has also likely affected his hatred for imperialism and wars, which manifested later on in his films (Henderson, 2010, p.1 ). David grew up in the “Lofty Green” farm, where he obtained his early education from his older sister, Mattie, who was a school teacher (Henderson, 2010, p.1). In a single-room country school, David and his peers read the classics of “Dickens, Shakespeare, and Sir Walter Scott” (Henderson, 2010, p.1).When David was ten years old, his father died. Life became more difficult for the Griffiths, after they learned that Jake, who was believed to be a gambler, mortgaged their farm and left them with numerous debts (Lang, 1994, p.25). Mary Griffith sold their farm to pay for all their debts and several months after Jake died, the Griffith family moved into the older son's house in Shelby County near Southville (Lang, 1994, p.26). Though the next five years were not the saddest times in David's life, they were one of the hardest (Lang, 1994, p.26). In 1889, their family moved again to Louisville, Kentucky, where Mattie was teaching (Lang, 1994, p.26). During this time, Louisville was described as one of the “most prosperous and interesting cities in the South (Lang, 1994, p.26). Their transition to urban living would have been better, if Mattie did not die from tuberculosis (Lang, 1994, p.26). In order to survive, David worked on odd jobs, until he left secondary school at around 1890 (Lang, 1994, p.26). He worked at the J.C. Lewis Dry Goods Store for more than two years, then as a clerk at Flexner's Book Store, the city's most famous book shop and a well-known “intellectual center” (Lang, 1994, p.26). As a bookshop clerk, David indulged his love for reading, art, music, and theater (Lang, 1994, p.26). Even after Flexners was sold to a new owner, David stayed with the latter for some time, before leaving to pursue his career in theater. His mother disapproved this move greatly, but David decided to join a touring company, where he worked in several small productions that traveled the small towns of Ohio, Minnesota, Michigan, and North Dakota (Lang, 1994, p.26). During this time, he continued to work on different and physical jobs, such as shoveling ore (Drew, 2002). He also wrote during play rehearsals, when he was not performing. In 1889, David moved to New York. In 1906, David married Linda Arvidson, who was also a stage actress. David's dream to become a playwright had its chance when he produced his play, “A Fool and a Girl” (Drew, 2002). When this play flopped, David and his wife turned to the new motion picture industry as their source of income (Drew, 2002). Griffith started his work in film at 1907 by acting in Rescued from an Eagle’s Nest, a film directed by Edwin S. Porter for the Edison Company and shown in theaters in 1908 (Drew, 2002). Griffith eventually transferred to the Biograph Company in New York City, where he both acted and wrote stories (Drew, 2002). David showed interest in directing and when Biograph's full-time director, George McCutcheon got sick, the job of directing The Adventures of Dollie was offered to David (Lang, 1994, p.27). David accepted the assignment and Linda acted as Dollie's mother (Lang, 1994, p.27). Griffith soon completed other assignments and became the studio's single director, especially after The Adventures of Dollie went beyond ordinary sales records (Lang, 1994, p.27). For the next five years, Griffith directed more than four hundred short films for Biograph. Biograph became the stepping point for Griffith to discover several of his stars, including Mary Pickford and the Gish sisters, Dorothy and Lillian Gish (Lang, 1994, p.28). Works and Achievements in Film and Theater During his Biograph years, Griffith already broke the boring “stage” approach to screen narrative that dominated the film industry (Tibbetts, 1985, p.196). He worked closely with his equally creative cameraman, G. W. “Billy” Bitzer to experiment on camera effects and movement, lighting, camera angles, and editing (Drew, 2002). Griffith is said to be the father of film grammar and he changed film making into an “art form” (Drew, 2002). Griffith went beyond technical effects and used close-ups and medium shots, so that the audience can feel more for his film characters (Drew, 2002). He also provided greater rhythm with his editing style; for instance, he reinforced the suspense and drama of his chase shots by shortening them and quickening their pace and through cross-cutting scenes (Drew, 2002). His famous panoramic shots created grandeur proportions for his films and his lighting innovations, with Bitzer's help, enhanced the mood and aesthetic presence of his films (Drew, 2002). Griffith also revolutionized the use of setting and he used locations to improve realism and dramatic effects (Drew, 2002). Griffith placed the first bricks of Hollywood, as we know today, when he started filming in California in 1910 (Drew, 2002). Griffith developed a well-known set of young actors and actresses, which was composed of “Mary Pickford, Blanche Sweet, Mae Marsh, Lillian and Dorothy Gish, Robert Harron, Henry B. Walthall, and Lionel Barrymore” (Drew, 2002). Griffith's artistic goals included training his actors and actresses to restrain their theatrical acting (Drew, 2002). He also developed strong heroine personalities that fit the suffragette movement of his times (Drew, 2002). Griffith's editing style became more pronounced in his chase shots in The Lonely Villa (1909) and The Lonedale Operator (1911) (Drew, 2002). He intensified excitement levels by “intercutting action between the chaser and the pursued, employing shorter and shorter shots to add to the suspense” (Drew, 2002). Similarly, in A Beast at Bay (1912), he developed a new technique to shoot a race between the heroine’s car and a train used by her boyfriend, who was rescuing her (Drew, 2002). The same technique had been used in his film, The Battle of Elderbush Gulch (1913) and soon, Griffith made waves as a modern and creative Western filmmaker (Drew, 2002). Griffith also started handling different subjects that upheld his vision of a progressive society (Simmon, 1994, p.24). In the films The Redman’s View (1909) and Ramona (1910), he criticized the white man’s subjugation of Native Americans (Drew, 2002). He also questioned capitalism’s impacts on the poor in A Corner in Wheat (1909) and highlighted scenes of urban poverty in The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) and several other films (Drew, 2002). Griffith reached his directing climax in Biograph with his feature film, Judith of Bethulia (1913), a movie based on the epic story of a Jewish heroin,e who saved her people from assaulting Assyrians (Drew, 2002). Judith of Bethulia, like Griffith's other films, showed his hatred for imperialism, as it damages lives and environment (Drew, 2002). Griffith had problems with the reluctance of Biograph to produce longer films and he decided to leave the studio in 1913 (Drew, 2002). He partnered with Harry Aitken of Mutual to establish his own independent company in Hollywood (Drew, 2002). He managed to take Billy Bitzer and many of his actors and actresses, such as “Lillian and Dorothy Gish, Blanche Sweet, Mae Marsh, Henry B. Walthall, and Robert Harron” (Drew, 2002). In 1914, he made a number of popular films and one of them is The Avenging Conscience, a suspense thriller that was based on Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart (Drew, 2002). The film that came after catapulted Griffith to stardom and secured the motion picture as the new “dominant narrative medium in 20th century America” (Drew, 2002). The film also generated controversy that blemished Griffith's career (Drew, 2002). Through the help of Frank E. Woods, Griffith adapted The Clansman, a “best-selling melodramatic novel about the Reconstruction era by Thomas Dixon”and broadened the story to include the narration of the Civil War and its impacts (Drew, 2002). Like other films that Griffith directed “without a script,” the filming of the The Birth of a Nation was customized to the specific views of Griffith of the operations and aftermath of the Civil War (Phillips, 1999, p. 14). Griffith already honed his directing techniques for a period of six years and through his performers, the film narrative achieved far greater heights (Schickel, 1996, p.276) and “size” (Phillips, 1996, p. 102). It is the first film that combined all innovations that Griffith developed. The Birth of a Nation was released in 1915, with a breaking-record running time of three hours. With its melodramatic scenes, historical allure, and visionary panoramic views, it swiftly turned into America's biggest box-office before the 1920s (Stokes, 2007). The Birth of a Nation premiered in Los Angeles and after its White House screening, President Woodrow Wilson was cited saying that it was “writing history with lightning” (Drew, 2002). Griffith's grasp of history provided a whole new texture and drama to his film, where he alternated images of war with its ravaging impacts on small families (Dancyger, 2007, p.7; Lang, 1994, p.4; Smyth, 2006, p.5). The praises for Griffith became tarnished with critics' belief of the overt racism in the film, as the Ku Klux Klan appeared to have rescued the south from undisciplined and beastly blacks (Schickel, 1996, p.276). The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People worked hard to ban the film because of its themes of racism and violence and others claimed that the film did increase violence against blacks, though some studies deny this (Drew, 2002; Schickel, 1996, p.276). The NAACP was not able to ban the film, but it was successful in diminishing the artistic merits of the movie (Adams, 2004, p.55; Bellin, 2005, p.32; Chanter, 2008, p.203; Mayer, 2009, p.157; Stewart, 2005, p.27). Griffith's Intolerance, released in September 1916, showed a new narrative structure that again broke cinematic traditions, as new “dramatic close-ups, camera movement, and parallel editing” reinforced Griffith's reputation as a film genius (Drew, 2002). Broken Blossoms (1919) was another hit (PBS, 1998). He directed several more films that focused on social criticisms on poverty and capitalism. As the 1920s progressed, however, Griffith's productions became outdated and lost its appeal to younger markets (Drew, 2002). Though he single-handedly changed film grammar, his inability to manage his finances made him quite unable to find work and sustain his needs for the last fifteen years of his life (Drew, 2002). On July 23, 1948, this genius left his mortal life in a small Los Angeles hotel (Drew, 2002). He is still remembered as “cinema's first great auteur” (Williams, 2001, p.110). Griffith's Lasting Legacy Griffith's lasting legacy cannot be overemphasized. Though he has been judged as a racist director, his directorial and writing merits should not be undermined. Through his numerous films, he perfected his craft and turned motion pictures into an art. His love for history and melodrama changed how directors see their film making processes and techniques. His innovations with camera angles and movements, lighting, editing, and storytelling have inspired future innovative directors, such as Erich von Stroheim and Sergey Eisenstein (Dancyger, 2007; Fabe, 2004, p.21). References Adams, C. J. (2004). The pornography of meat. New York: The Continuum. Bellin, J.D. (2005). Framing monsters: Fantasy film and social alienation. Illinois: Southern Illinois University. Chanter, T. (2008). The picture of abjection: Film, fetish, and the nature of difference. Indiana: Indiana University Press. Dancyger, K. (2007). The technique of film and video editing: History, theory, and practice (4th ed.). Massachusetts: Focal Press. Drew, W.M. (2002). D.W. Griffith (1875-1948). Retrieved from http://www.gildasattic.com/dwgriffith.html Fabe, F. (2004). Closely watched films: An introduction to the art of narrative film technique. California: University of California Press. Henderson, R.M. (2010). Griffith, D(avid) W(ark). Britannica Biographies, 1-2. Lang, R. (1994). D.W. Griffith: A biographical sketch. In R. Lang (Ed.), The Birth of a Nation: D.W. Griffith, director (pp.25-38). California: Rutgers. ____________. The Birth of a Nation: History, ideology, narrative form. In R. Lang (Ed.), The Birth of a Nation: D.W. Griffith, director (pp.3-24). California: Rutgers. Mayer, D. (2009). Stagestruck filmmaker: D.W. Griffith & the American theatre. Iowa: University of Iowa Press. Phillips, P. (1996). Spectator, audience, and response. In J. Nelmes, An introduction to film studies (pp.91-128). New York: Rutgers. PBS. (1998). D.W. Griffith. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ americanmasters/episodes/d-w-griffith/about-d-w-griffith/621/ Phillips, G.D. (1999). Major film directors of the American and British cinema, Volume 1999. New Jersey: Associated University Press. Schickel, R. (1996). D.W. Griffith: An American life. New York: First Limelight Edition. Simmon, S. (1993). The films of D.W. Griffith. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smyth, J. E. (2006). Reconstructing American historical cinema: From Cimarron to Citizen Kane. Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky. Stewart, J.N. (2005). Migrating to the movies: Cinema and Black urban modernity. California: University of California Press. Stokes, M. (2007). D. W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation”: A history of “The Most Controversial Motion Picture of All Time”. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press. Tibbetts, J.C. (1985). The American theatrical film: Stages in development. Ohio: Bowling Green State University Press. Williams, L. (2001). Playing the race card: Melodramas of Black and white from Uncle Tom to O.J Simpson. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Read More